I am a novice web designer who has a history of creating websites using templates and WSIWYG programs like Dreamweaver. So I know some basic html and a little flash. But that's it - I DO NOT know CSS or CMS. Mostly I'm a graphic designer. But I'm looking to learn a new web language...
I now have a client who wants me to design a website so that in the future, they can edit the website themselves. I know this is a popular trend these days in the client community. And I know this is the main purpose of web CMS. I am looking to learn a new web language but want to make sure I learn the right one.
My question is, what language do you recommend to build this website -- making it the easiest for the client to edit in the future? What language has the best/easiest interface for a NON-DESIGNER to edit a website? Another matter of note, also, is the flexibility of design creativity on my end.
Wordpress? Droopal? Joomla? I've researched a little bit about Adobe Contribute CS5 as well and thought of this also as a viable option... perhaps?
Thoughts? Suggestions?
In depth info would be awesome! Pros/cons of popular languages, common uses for popular languages (blogs, ecommerce, etc.), links to further knowledge, references, etc.
Thanks!!
Without a doubt, you should start with Wordpress.
You may take a look at this google trends comparison: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=wordpress,drupal,joomla
I'm not saying is the best, but Wordpress is VERY popular, it is much simpler to begin with, and I think you'll get much more job offers.
Regarding languages and technologies, Wordpress is PHP powered, so your learning path should be:
- HTML
- CSS
- PHP
- JavaScript / jQuery
And for the future, you might start thinking on Javascript, Node, Angular and React since the internet ship is going that direction (even Wordpress)
My personal recommendation if you wanted to code fancy things would be Python and the Django web framework. However, that's probably a bit more advanced than you can currently handle.
All 3 of the frameworks you've listed are well respected. Which one you choose is really going to depend on what kind of site you're building. If you're building a site which focuses around a blog, by all means use Wordpress. You can add static elements relatively easily, but it shines for episodic content. If you're building a site that has more static "page" type content, either Drupal or Joomla are reasonable choices. I would probably lean a bit towards Drupal. If you tell us what kind of page you're building for your client, we can give you more tailored advice.
As an aside, "CMS" isn't really a language. The systems you're talking about are frameworks. PHP is the language that they happen to be written in.
You won't go wrong with any of the above options.
I would stay away from Adobe Contribute.
There are many good open source content systems such as wordpress, drupal, joomla, etc. They can be customized for your needs. Here are some tips if you want to write your own: learn soke script language like php, perl, python,etc. Php is very user-friendly and there are so much built in functions that make your life easier. You also need some database experience - mysql, postgre, etc. Creating your own cms is a good way to learn a concept, so good luck.
I would definitely start with learning HTML 4 (and 5) and CSS.
For a server side language there are several options. Perhaps PHP is the easiest to start with.
WordPress is a very powerful framework. Joomla is even bigger. It totally depends on the requirements. But if you want to use a framework like Joomla, Drupal, or WordPress, PHP is probably the best language to study. Personally I'd prefer ASP.NET, but that's mostly because I'm already familiar with that framework. I like PHP as well, but it always feels like ASP.NET is more mature. But that's my personal opinion!
Take a look at the features of WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, that's the best advice I can give. You've got the requirements for the website so, after a short study, you are the only one who can make a good decision.
Related
I want to create a website and I am confused which web framework to use. Please recommend me which framework is better: Django or Zope. I am using Python.
If you mean plain Zope2 by zope then I'd go for Django. Most interesting stuff in the Zope world takes place with either Plone or Grok (which is Zope3, which is actually quite different from Zope2).
Grok works nice with relational databases, Plone doesn't really, so if you depend on an RDBMS, either go with Grok or Django.
Zope and Plone have a rather steep learning curve so you'll get started more quickly with Django.
The largest downside about Django is, in my opinion, that it tries do do everything by itself (templating, object publishing, ORM, and so on) while there are many excellent existing components out there. If you want to be able to use your code / knowledge outside of the web framework you're using, consider Pylons or BFG
Many options, no clear answer, sorry :)
I have no idea what sort of website you're trying to create, so it's hard to recommend a specific framework.
I'd recommend getting through some tutorials to see which one you like best (There's also pylons and TurboGears to pick from).
Django seems to be the most popular starting kit these days though.
If your website is very hierarchical and needs fine grained permissions, I'd use Zope. (Don't use Zope if you intend to store your data almost exclusively in an SQL database.)
If you have large datasets that can be put into (sql)tables and need many forms, I'd use Django. (Don't use Django if you need very fine grained access control, and hierarchical data)
You see: both have their weaknesses and strengths (although I am only developing in Django these days. The Zope community seems to be a bit in dispute these days about the way it should develop)
Zope is dead. As is TurboGears, Pylons, BFG, Repoze, CherryPy etc.
Active and popular Python web frameworks include:
* django
* flask
* bottle
Big, medium and small. Take your pick.
Here is a good comparison of Django and Zope (and Rails)
http://cd-docdb.fnal.gov/cgi-bin/RetrieveFile?docid=2715;filename=Comparison.html;version=3
They preferred Django. I, personally, use Django too, so I don't know much about Zope.
Another good thing about Django is that they have very good documentation (though I don't know that of Zope). Many people praise that very much.
Also I found Django quite easy to use, and also they have a ready 'administrator panel', which allows quick web-oriented site management from the first steps. More important for me, however, is its fine integration with python and the simple organisation (in the link above they complained that Zope uses very much of its own features, while Django is closer to pure Python).
If you are starting from scratch I will suggest you should go for Django. You will get lots of features and suppost from django. Easy to debug and best suited for rapid developement. In the other hand, You should only choose Zope, if you have experienced developers familiar with Zope or have existing projects based on Zope and the cost of switching is too high for the potential value gain.
In zope's website it self it is written, It is no longer recommended to start new projects based on it, unless you are intimately familiar with the technology stack.
I have a few years experience programming c++ and a little less then that using Qt. I built a data mining software using Qt and I want to make it available online. Unfortunately, I know close to nothing about web programming. Firstly, how easy or hard is this to do and what is the best way to go about it?
Supposing I am looking to hire someone to make me a secure, long-term, extensible, website for an online software service, what skill set should I be looking for?
Edit:
I want to make my question a little more specific:
How can I take a bunch of working c++ functions and port the code so I can run it server side on a website?
Once this is done, would it be easy to make changes to the c++ code and have the algorithm automatically update on the site?
What technologies would be involved? Are there any cloud computing platforms that would be good for something like this?
#Niklaos-what does it mean to build a library and how does one do that?
You might want to have a look at Wt[1]. Its a C++ web framework which is programmed more or less like a desktop GUI application. One of the use cases quoted is to bring legacy apps into the web.
[1] http://www.webtoolkit.eu
Port the functions to Java, easily done from C++, you can even find some tools to help - don't trust them implicitly but they could provide a boost.
See longer answer below.
Wrap them in a web application, and deploy them on Google App-Engine.
Java version of a library would be a jar file.
If you really want to be able to update the algorithm implementation dynamically, then you could implement them in Groovy, and upload changes through a form on your webapp, either as files or as a big text block, need to consider version control.
The effort/skillset involved to perform the task depends on how your wrote your code. If it is in a self-contained library, and has a clean (re-entrant, thread safe) API, you could probably hire a web developer (html/php/asp etc) to write the UI interface to the library for a relatively small cost. The skills required would be dependant on the technologies you wanted to use. For Windows development I would suggest C#/ASP. The applicant would require knowledge of interfacing with native libraries from a managed language. This is assuming that you dont mind the costs of Windows deployment for your application.
On the otherhand, if the library is complex or needs to be re-written to support the extensibility you are looking for, asking here will not get you much.
BTW: here is a great article on Marshalling if you chose to implement using C#/ASP
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164193.aspx
First, DO NOT USE PHP :D
I used it for some projects (the last one with symphony framework) and i almost shoot my self !
If you are very familiar with C++, ASP .NET could be a good solution because if you like C++ you are going to love C#.
Any ways, I personally use Ruby on Rails for 6 months now and I LOVE IT. I won't write you a book here but the framework is pure gold !
The only problem is that Ruby is a very special language. You will probably be a bit lost a the beginning. But as every one you will learn to love it.
But that was only for the server side. Indeed, there 3 technologies you won't be able to avoid if you want to start to develop web applications.
HTML, CSS and JavaScript are presents every where. This is why i'm thinking you should start by HTML and CSS then JavaScript (with jQuery).
When you've got some basics with these 3 technologies you should be able to choose the server side language.
But you've got to tell you one thing, it's not going to be easy !
PS : Ruby on Rails uses HAML and SASS. These 2 languages replaces HTML and CSS you should have a look at them quickly because they are awesome.
Background:
I have a new site in the design phase and am considering using ColdFusion. The Server is currently set-up with ColdFusion and Python (done for me).
It is my choice on what to use and ColdFusion seems intriguing with the tag concept. Having developed sites in PHP and Python the idea of using a new tool seems fun but I want to make sure it is as easy to use as my other two choices with things like URL beautification and scalability.
Are there any common problems with using ColdFusion in regards to scalability and speed of development?
My other choice is to use Python with WebPy or Django.
ColdFusion 9 with a good framework like Sean Cornfeld's FW/1 has plenty of performance and all the functionality of any modern web server development language. It has some great integration features like exchange server support and excel / pdf support out of the box.
Like all tools it may or may not be the right one for you but the gotchas in terms of scalability will usually be with your code, rarely the platform.
Liberally use memcached or the built in ehache in CF9, be smart about your data access strategy, intelligently chunk returned data and you will be fine performance wise.
My approach with CF lately involves using jQuery extensively for client side logic and using CF for the initial page setup and ajax calls to fill tables. That dramatically cuts down on CF specific code and forces nice logic separation. Plus it cuts the dependency on any one platform (aside from the excellent jQuery library).
To specifically answer your question, if you read the [coldfusion] tags here you will see questions are rarely on speed or scalability, it scales fine. A lot of the questions seem to be on places where CF is a fairly thin layer on another tool like Apache Axis (web services) and ExtJs (cfajax) - neither of which you need to use. You will probably need mod-rewrite or IIS rewrite to hide .cfm
Since you have both ColdFusion and Python available to you already, I would carefully consider exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish.
Do you need a gradual learning curve, newbie-friendly language (easy for someone who knows HTML to learn), great documentation, and lots of features that make normally difficult tasks easy? That sounds like a job for ColdFusion.
That said, once you get the basics of ColdFusion down, it's easy to transition into an Object Oriented approach (as others have noted, there are a plethora of MVC frameworks available: FW/1, ColdBox, Fusebox, Model-Glue, Mach-ii, Lightfront, and the list goes on...), and there are also dependency management (DI/IoC) frameworks (my favorite of which is ColdSpring, modeled after Java's Spring framework), and the ability to do Aspect-Oriented Programming, as well. Lastly, there are also several ORM frameworks (Transfer, Reactor, and DataFaucet, if you're using CF8 or earlier, or add Hibernate to the list in CF9+).
ColdFusion also plays nicely with just about everything else out there. It can load and use .Net assemblies, provides native access to Java classes, and makes creating and/or consuming web services (particularly SOAP, but REST is possible) a piece of cake. (I think it even does com/corba, if you feel like using tech from 1991...)
Unfortunately, I've got no experience with Python, so I can't speak to its strengths. Perhaps a Python developer can shed some light there.
As for url rewrting, (again, as others have noted) that's not really done in the language (though you can fudge it); to get a really nice looking URL you really need either mod_rewrite (which can be done without .htaccess, instead the rules would go into your Apache VHosts config file), or with one of the IIS URL Rewriting products.
The "fudging" I alluded to would be a url like: http://example.com/index.cfm/section/action/?search=foo -- the ".cfm" is in the URL so that the request gets handed from the web server (Apache/IIS) to the Application Server (ColdFusion). To get rid of the ".cfm" in the URL, you really do have to use a URL rewriting tool; there's no way around it.
From two years working with CF, for me the biggest gotchas are:
If you're mainly coding using tags (rather than CFScript) and formatting for readability, be prepared for your output to be filled with whitespace. Unlike other scripting languages, the whitespace between statements are actually sent to the client - so if you're looping over something 100 times and outputting the result, all the linebreaks and tabs in the loop source code will appear 100 times. There are ways around this but it's been a while - I'm sure someone on SO has asked the question before, so a quick search will give you your solution.
Related to the whitespace problem, if you're writing a script to be used with AJAX or Flash and you're trying to send xml; even a single space before the DTD can break some of the more fussy parsing engines (jQuery used to fall over like this - I don't know if it still does and flash was a nightmare). When I first did this I spent hours trying to figure out why what looked like well formed XML was causing my script to die.
The later versions aren't so bad, but I was also working on legacy systems where even quite basic functionality was lacking. Quite often you'll find you need to go hunting for a COM or Java library to do the job for you. Again, though, this is in the earlier versions.
CFAJAX was a heavy, cumbersome beast last time I checked - so don't bother, roll your own.
Other than that, I found CF to be a fun language to work with - it has its idiosyncracies like everything else, but by and large it was mostly headache free and fast to work with.
Hope this helps :)
Cheers
Iain
EDIT: Oh, and for reasons best known to Adobe, if you're running the trial version you'll get a lovely fat HTML comment before all of your output - regardless of whether or not you're actually outputting HTML. And yes, because the comment appears before your DTD, be prepared for some browsers (not looking at any one in particular!) to render it like crap. Again - perhaps they've rethought this in the new version...
EDIT#2: You also mentioned URL Rewriting - where I used to work we did this all the time - no problems. If you're running on Apache, use mod_rewrite, if you're running on IIS buy ISAPI Rewrite 3.
do yourself the favor and check out the CFWheels project. it has the url rewriting support and routes that you're looking for. also as a full stack mvc framework, it comes with it's own orm.
It's been a few years, so my information may be a little out of date, but in my experience:
Pros:
Coldfusion is easy to learn, and quick to get something up and running end-to-end.
Cons:
As with many server-side scripting languages, there is no real separation between persistence logic, business logic, and presentation. All of these are typically interwoven throughout a typical Coldfusion source file. This can mean a lot more work if you want to make changes to the database schema of a mature application, for example.
There are some disciplines that can be followed to make things a little more maintainable; "Fusebox" was one. There may be others.
I am currently working on a program that I really think is a good idea (at least I sure hope it is). For the program I am building I am using (after some very long consideration) ColdFusion - Flex - Adobe Air. However, I have to learn ColdFusion to do this.
I am an independent developer that for the most part uses PHP to build my client's websites. Since I plan on learning ColdFusion to build this program, do you guys have any advice on how I can use ColdFusion elsewhere. It is not very exciting to think that I am learning this language for just one thing.
I don't plan on bulding Coca-Cola's lastest greatest website anytime soon, but I (for some odd reason) enjoy coding and was just wondering if you guys had any advice on any smaller-time avenues that one could persue??
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! :)
Cliff notes: I'm an independent PHP developer learning ColdFusion for a client. Its not exciting to learn a language which I will never use again. Where can I apply ColdFusion in the future?
You can use ColdFusion to build any webapp you could build with PHP. I've seen a few articles lately with comments from PHP developers switching to ColdFusion. This one was posted today, and lists some pros and cons of switching to ColdFusion.
http://blog.rubicon.je/2009/09/coldfusion-half-a-year-away/
I wouldn't consider it an either/or proposition though. If you want to learn CF for your AIR app, it will absolutely come in handy for something else down the road, even if you don't plan for that. Knowing more than one (or three) languages is always beneficial, as it gives you additional insight into other ways to solve problems.
Dan
ColdFusion or CFML the language is a tool, like any other you might add to your toolkit. As developers I personally feel we choose choose the best tool for the job. That said having another tool available will invariably come in handy down the road rather you write another CFML application or not. General solid programming advice is to try and learn at least one new language a year.
CFML is easy to learn, yet also provides for advanced development, which is why many choose to go with it. I came from a PHP/Perl background and picked it up in a couple weeks. If you are comfortable programming once you get the syntax down you can use to it do anything you can do with PHP. I wrote at length on the comparison in this answer.
Further lengthy Question/Answers to the viability/use of ColdFusion:
Is ColdFusion a good choice for web development?
What is the status of ColdFusion today?
I know you didn't ask about comparisons, you have made your decision. For building Flex/AIR apps with a data back-end imho ColdFusion or BlazeDs is the way to go. ColdFusion allows you to hook up the power of java to serve data with the easy of a scripting language. With that starting point you have your foot in the Java platform which is tremendously powerful and extensive. You can invoke interact with the Java layer and harness that power. Many will make the leap to Java or a more "friendly" JVM language like Groovy or JRuby.
do you guys have any advice on how I can use ColdFusion elsewhere.
slidesix is a recent example of an interesting use of ColdFusion. NASDAQ built Flex/AIR market replay application. Also you can check Ben Forta's site for more sites running ColdFusion to get some ideas.
But I think you already hit the nail on the head with Flex/AIR apps if you plan on making more, much of what Adobe does is work to make integration with their technologies as seamless as possible. Honestly that alone has been what has excited me most about using CFML and the recent addition of open source alternatives in Railo/BlazeDs I have been building Flex apps powered by Railo/BlazeDs without paying a dime to Adobe.
I guess the bottom line is that the Java platform (via CFML) and the Flash Platform (via Flex Framework ) are both not going anywhere any time soon, and for that matter neither is PHP so I think you will have a solid set of skill from which to build on either way you go.
ColdFusion is huge in Government, both at the Federal and State level. I moved to the D.C. area in large part because of the number CF jobs available around here.
So, you could always use it for gainful employment.
Update: Some links as requested
Ben Forta's list of sites using ColdFusion, Government category
Who uses ColdFusion - a list of ColdFusion development shops
GotCFM?com - a list of sites using ColdFusion; lots of government sites there (look under "N"; the "Government" category isn't fleshed out)
Adobe.com - abridged list of customers, some with links to case studies
Monster.com search "coldfusion" in Washington, DC
Dice.com search "coldfusion" in Washington, DC
You can get a basic reading of what people are paying for via (shudder) RentACoder: http://www.google.com/search?q=coldfusion+site%3Arentacoder.com
You can use coldfusion everywhere and as much as you like in PHP. There's enough free engines (Railo, Smith, OpenBlueDragon) that you can load into Tomcat instances, or use something like stax to put a coldfusion app into the cloud.
How far you do or don't go is up to you. I find that I write about 1/2 the code in coldfusion that I do in PHP. Maybe it's syntax that I feel less, I don't know.
But build your first project, I think the dots to connect will become apparent on their own
First, some background information... I'm coming up on a medium-scale website for a non-profit that will require both English and Korean translations. Feature-set includes: CMS for normal content, a blog, some form submission/handling (including CSV/PDF exports), a job posting board, a directory of related businesses and non-profits (that accepts visitor submissions), and a basic (probably blog-driven) newsroom.
I have a fairly strong development background, and I've done some sites using Drupal, built some basic custom CMSes using frameworks like CodeIgniter, and I've recently started getting into Django. These are the primary options that I am exploring, and I would consider using different tools for different portions of the project, but what I'm mainly interested in, is if anyone has any experience to share with regards to localization/internationalization. I haven't yet put together a site that supports multiple languages, so before I get in trouble by underestimating the task, or making poor assumptions, I'd like to get some input to help guide my decision-making process.
Do you have any recommendations for frameworks (Drupal, Django, CodeIgniter) that handle localization/internationalization/translation well for a CMS? I know they all support it, but I'm looking for real-world experience here (or suggestions for modules/plugins given explanations).
Sorry for the longwinded question, but I wanted to be clear as possible. Thanks in advance!
There is a distinction between "site" translation and content translation. Django handles the site translation great, out of the box. The content translation, however, requires making some decisions (there's no one right way at this point). This probably makes sense, because of the very nature of Django as a lower level framework (when compared to something like Drupal, which is intended to serve as a complete CMS).
There are applications for Django which are meant to add this functionality (in the form of translations configured at the model level):
Django-multilingual
Transmeta
Also, I found this question that is related.
The bottom line though, is that this is still being explored in the Django world, and neither approach has been decided upon for the framework. Also, although I haven't used it, Drupal has module support for this in the form of the i18n module.
I will update with more conclusions as I come to them. If you have anything to add about content translation in Django or in Drupal, feel free to add your own answer as well.
You probably already know that the native i18n support in django is quite good. As for translation, you might try the django-rosetta app which allows you to grant translation rights to a subset of users, who are then able to translate through an admin-like interface.
Zend_Translate is pretty comprehensive. And if you decide to use PHP, I suggest you take a look at it. It provides multiple interfaces (e.g. an Array, CSV, Gettext, etc.) to manage your translations, which makes it IMHO unmatched when it comes to PHP.
I'm not sure how well it plays with Drupal, since Drupal is hardly a framework but more a CMS -- or maybe a CMS framework. I'm pretty sure that Drupal either has a thing build in or that there is a plugin for it.
With CodeIgniter you would start from scratch and Zend_Translate plays well with it.
I liked Drupal over Joomla. You should also look into DotNetNuke, out of the box it has lot of things that will meet your needs.
Checkout django-blocks. Has multi-language Menu, Flatpages and even has a simple Shopping Cart!!